Arabesque 1

I was downstairs in Brace Commons yesterday to take a break from pretending to study for finals and spent a good fifteen minutes staring at the piano before finally heading towards it. My excuse was that I didn't want to bother the people studying downstairs in the common area, didn't want to be rude because I was kinda having a conversation with N* whom I've barely seen the last few months... but let's be honest here. I'm terrified of playing the piano now, more terrified than I've ever been before any exam or competition that may have felt, at the time, like the only thing that truly mattered (I guess if we're really being honest, I should admit that I've always been too scared to really make such an emotional commitment and I surely feigned some of that pride in my music). Even more terrifying is that every day it becomes a little harder to sit down at that bench. One day I might just find myself physically unable to, I'm afraid.

What used to be a constantly growing repertoire has dwindled down to just a few pieces from lack of practice or input (I don't count the pieces I play for the retired folks at Harvest Hill, because there I'm showcasing youth and vitality rather than musical virtuosity, and I play songs like "Red River Valley" that I learned when I was in elementary school). Among them is Debussy's Arabesque 1. No surprise there, that song literally got me through my freshman year of high school--I played it when I was happy, miserable, furious, anxious... the entire spectrum emotions that teenage girls confront while they nurture the false belief that the world is stacked against them.

Yet, despite how intrinsic that song once was, I couldn't play past the first few pages. That first key change lost me completely. (I can still hear the song in my head the way I liked it most, with a slow shy start that takes shaky, meandering steps towards a climax before settling down, maturing, changing keys and changing attitudes. For that memory I can be thankful.) Despite several attempts to play the song I could never go past the first few measures of the second section. It's experiences like that, I think, that lost floundering feeling at passages I once sailed effortlessly through, which compound my fear of sitting down at the piano bench, that fear that one day I won't be able to play at all anymore, and playing the piano will be just another thing I did once-upon-a-time.

I'd like to think the problem would be solved if I could get my hands on a copy of the sheet music. The last time I saw the sheet music for Arabesque was on B*s piano, several years ago. He was so excited and nervous that afternoon, leading me into the room with his hand covering my eyes and letting me sit down only after extracting countless promises from me that I wouldn't open my eyes, wouldn't laugh. He proceeded to play for me my favorite song--now would be an appropriate time to mention that despite its simplicity, Arabesque is, has been, will always be one of my favorite pieces--haltingly, with an awkward rhythm and at a strange tempo, missing a note every few arpeggios.

If it wasn't such an adorable gesture (he hadn't touched a piano in years prior to this), I probably would have cringed the entire time, but at the time I could choose to focus on the sentiment backing the message instead. And somehow with that gesture he took ownership of that song, my favorite song, and now I can't play it without thinking about him. This was a bigger problem when my feelings towards him were still unresolved, because when I sit down at a piano my fingers sometimes drift subconsciously towards middle C, the starting note of the song.

I'd like to think a simpler to reacquire the ability to play one of my favorite songs is to stop trying to remember the notes. Maybe if I just sit down and play, without worrying about what I'll do when I get to that one transition that always loses me, I'll be able to slip past it unnoticed.